
















I 




















THE POLITICAL MISSION 
OF TAMMANY HALL 


CHAPTER I. 

THE “machine” inevitable. 

It is not strange that New York politics, the conflict for partisan 
control, has developed a strong and appreciative party machine. The 
growth of New York in wealth, the rapid extension of its limits, the 
increasing complexity of its public interests have created needs for 
an enlarged government, for whose support money was demanded in 
greater and greater amounts. The eyes of those who had accustomed 
themselves to regard public office as a means of livelihood saw, rising 
before them, vast prospects of metropolitan aggrandizement. They 
could not fail to realize that the opportunities of the future would be 
unusual, and with comfortable anticipations prepared to reap the 
harvest so richly promised. New York City did not perhaps draw 
upon itself the avaricious eyes of the politician, spoilsman and place- 
hunter until it had reached the dimensions of a first-class city, in 
1820. From this time on it became a centre of political intrigue, 
political competition and political hopes. It offered many inducements 
to the ardent minds who find in public life the gratifications of 
vanity and the satisfaction of greed. It formed in its Mayor, a 
convenient stepping stone to higher flights of political aspiration, and 
the constituency of its office holders, the subornation of its voters and 
the support of its majority were influential factors in the attainment of 
State and even national distinctions. In 1800, the running expenses 



2 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 




of New York City were ^loo.ooo; in 1890, they were over ^^35,000,000. 
Between these two amounts what a history is suggested, what tendencies 
towards indefinite social extension are embraced! It means the 
development of a fabric of living, monumental in its extent, infinite 
in its resources, endless in its parts and inter-related sections of 
feeling and action. 

To the politician it meant the increasing capabilities and the 
increasing returns of the business of government. It furnished new 
incentives,—or rather old incentives, emphasized and deepened by a 
wider scope of action and a fuller sense of profit—to arouse his 
ambition and stir his ingenuity. To devise the means of controlling 
the enormous practical interests represented by such an expenditure 
as that of 1890, implied the concentrated attention of many genera¬ 
tions of men upon the problem of municipal management, no matter 
whether or no that attention produced results at all commensurate 
with the protracted study the problem demanded, no matter whether 
it was always disinterested, or more generally selfish. The 
very growth of New York City, with its net-work of public 
domesticities, so to speak, its police, its building inspection, 
its public buildings, its parks, its board of health, its streets 
and the machinery of justice, compelled men with a head for 
affairs to give it their time and to claim their rewards in the 
excitement of public life or the salaries of public office. In short, 
as that sum of ^100,000 expended in 1800, in New York, became 
^35,000,000 in 1890, the measure of its expansion became the 
measure of the increasing desire for political control by those who 
guide and inspire the councils of political parties. The building of a 
political machine was inevitable. A political organization, adapting 
itself to the circumstances of the society in which it arises and taking 
from these its character, is as certain an organism in the political 
world, when the stimulus to political activity is overpowering and 
constant, as the growth of grass upon a soil, warmed by the sun, fed 
by rains, and abounding in the elements of plant food is in the 
vegetable. And what stimuli could be more overpowering or more 
constant? New York became almost the seat of national government 
in 1783, and from that time on to 1790, furnished an influential 




OF TAMMANY HALL 


3 


contingent in the hot and eager debates that settled national questions 
and gave form to the national government. As Mr. Roosevelt has 
said: ‘‘It was during this period of the foundation of the Federal 
government, and during the immediately succeeding period of the 
supremacy of the Federalists in national affairs, that New York City 
played its greatest and most honorable part in the government of the 
nation. Never before, or since, has it occupied so high a position^ 
politically, compared to- the country at large; for during these years 
it was the seat of power of the brilliant Federalist party of New York 
State. Alexander Flamilton, John Jay and, at the end of the time, 
Gouverneur Morris lived in the city, or so near it as to have 
practically the weight and influence of citizens; and it was the home 
likewise of their arch foe, Aaron Burr, the prototype of the skillful, 
unscrupulous ward-politician, so conspicuous in the later period of the 
city's development." For twelve years the alternations of party were 
constant and the excitement intense amongst a populace yet unaccus¬ 
tomed to the use of political rights, inflamed with the eagerness of 
men confident in their views, intolerant of opposition, and, above all, 
nervously suspicious of the future. The turbulence of party strife was 
startling, and to our eyes might appear crude, rude and obnoxious. 
Yet, however immature and uncontrolled was the exaggerated 
conduct of politicians and parties then, it imparted a strong political 
bias to New York’s population, and contributed recurrent motives 
towards the erection of a political machine. Says Roosevelt: “ Party 
and personal feeling was intensely bitter all through these contests. 
Duels were frequent among the leaders, and riots not much less so 
among their followers. The mob turned out joyfully, on mischief 
bent, whenever there was any excuse for it; and the habit of holding 
open-air meetings, to denounce some particular person or measure, 
gave ample opportunity for outbreaks.” And when, in i8oi,the 
Democrats won the State Election, and this party commenced ip' 
almost unbroken control of New York City, then the “spoils” system 
became contemporaneously established. Money emoluments, especially 
when they became so great, made the term of office more pleasing, 
while it afforded more and more that persuasive assistance in State and 
national contests which reacted upon the determination of the local 



4 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


party to retain its power. The machine took shape. It had not yet 
ward organizations, a general organization and a complete system of 
social polity, which made it slowest lieutenant feel his continuity in 
the political fraternity with the boss or bosses who used and paid for 
his services. But it had the persistency of greed and a scrutinizing 
recollection of its enemies which made it vigorous and vigilant. 
Says Mr. Roosevelt: “ From this time on every faction of the 

Democratic party in turn,, when it was in power, used the patronage 
mercilessly against its antagonists within and without the party, 
making a clean sweep of the offices; and so did the Federalist, when, 
for a brief moment, just before the War of 1812, they again took the 
reins of government in the State. It was, of course, but a short step 
from making removals for political reasons, without regard to the 
fitness of the incumbent, to making appointments in which considera¬ 
tions of political expediency outweighed considerations of propriety. 
The step was soon taken. The Council of Appointment even, 
occasionally, gave lucrative local offices in the City of New York to 
influential partisans of loose character from remote sections of the 
State.” 

As the momentum of industrial life gathered greater and greater 
power, and the wider and wider streams of commerce poured into 
New York, the political strife for its control, for the pecuniary support 
of its public revenue, became increasingly bitter. Nothing but 
organization, nothing but some sort of a machine could retain New 
York, and give to a political party the rich spoils it represented in 
influence and in wealth. And two causes contributed still further to 
make clear to the eyes of political managers this certainty, while they 
also afforded the necessary conditions to make it possible. First, the 
mixed population of New York; and second, the political antagonism 
between the City and the State. Roosevelt remarks that at the out¬ 
break of the revolution, strangers complained, then as now, that it 
was difficult to say what a typical New Yorker was, because New 
York’s population was composed of various races, differing widely 
in blood, religion, and conditions of life. In fact, diversity has 
always been the dominant note of New York. No sooner has one 
set of varying elements been fused together than another stream has 




OF TAMMANY HALL 


5 


been poured into the crucible. There probably has been no period 
in the city’s growth during which the New Yorkers, whose parents 
were born in New York, formed the majority of the population ; and 
there never has been a time when the bulk of its citizens were of 
English blood.” This slightly alien character of the population has 
become in later years more marked, while it has introduced an element 
which, having a fatal facility for words, for the mechanism of social 
intercourse and social comradeship, allied with a certain half-naive 
delight in irregularities, has accelerated the movement towards putting 
together a party machine big enough to need the revenues of office, 
and extensive enough to pay for the subornation of poor and ignorant 
voters. New York, becoming heterogeneous in its population, 
acquired a degraded sense of patriotic sentiment, and lost a 
distinctively American sense of political virtue. A machine which 
represented the dominant party and which lost no opportunity to 
influence its supporters with contempt for exact government, for 
measures of progressive civilization, and for ideas of philanthropic or 
intellectual improvement was easily put together upon a soil of opinion 
not smart enough to do its own political thinking, not good enough 
to disapprove of the thinking of others when it was pernicious or 
dishonest. Again, to this fact of the need of a political machine having 
executive functions and practical devices for securing votes and 
holding offices, amid a mixed, fluctuating and not distinctively high- 
minded or local populace, was added the influences of a period which 
flung dissension into the councils of the nation, and touched with 
passion the political competition of the Republican and Democratic 
parties, when the movement for the liberation of the slaves laid bare 
the latent animosities of two sections of the country and enlisted 
them in the conflict of mutual recriminations. There was the party 
of progress, zeal, and an irritating and unmanageable fervor of 
propagandism, and the party of conservatism and judicial expedients, 
sometimes akin to a low-lived sympathy with the degradation of an 
inferior race, and the crimes of a sensual institution. Democracy of 
the worst type became rampant just before the War of the Rebellion, 
and Rhynders and Fernando Wood were representative of a coalition 
between the ruffianism of the street and the discreet caution of the 




6 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


drawing room, between the uneducated and malevolent demon of the 
slums, and the penetrating sense of the educated trimmer. The 
Democracy of New York assumed then its worst type. The political 
machine, which had before that grown by the force of interested 
motive, became degraded and intensified by an infusion of activity, 
arising from vindictiveness, hate and inebriety. This has left its 
mark upon the whole Tammany organization, but the remedies of 
time, the force of popular feeling and the changed moral environment 
of its members has effaced for the most part this spirit of scoffing vice 
and the feeling of race pride and social jealousy. 

As the machine became more dependent upon the votes of the less 
desirable voters, and as the Democratic party became more and more 
confident of its supremacy in New York, it took on larger proportions, 
became the useful tool of political managers, enlarged the scope of its 
appliances for securing votes, for influencing legislation, and turning 
the scale in national conventions. The opportunities it afforded 
ambitious and unscrupulous men, or even men of ambition of a decent 
and restrained temper, to attain political honors, attracted politicians. 
It made them active to secure its maintenance, consolidate its 
resources, codify its rules, fill its treasury, and extend the fascination 
of its method and its ubiquity. Clansmen and heelers, boodlers and 
tippers came into vogue. They realized then what Richard Croker 
(or Bourke Cochran) wrote last February, that “no great army ever 
has the cohesive power of a regiment. The larger the mas^, the less 
perfectly do its members know the habits and purposes of its leader, 
having no close personal contact with him; but in the regiment, 
which is the unit and type of military strength, every private knows 
his captain and his colonel as well. In the course of service he sees 
all his comrades and officers in array; he sees the officers advance and 
salute the commander and that salute returned, and thus experiences 
the spirit and purpose that animate the entire body. This feeling of 
a common purpose is the supreme aim of military organization in the 
direction of effectiveness ; and a compacted and select political club 
or society is governed by the same processes. ’ ’ 

I The second cause that sharpened the natural tendencies towards 
f/ party machinery in New York was, as we have stated, “ the political 



OF TAMMANY HALL 


7 


antagonism between the City and the State,” an antagonism accentu¬ 
ated by the unfair spirit of legislation prevalent in the country mem¬ 
bers of the State legislature, and the inclination on the part of the 
provinces to lay their common burdens upon the shoulders of the 
municipality. This influence in favor of closer and more useful 
machine processes was better and more creditable than the intention 
to make available the ignorance of foreign born citizens and the mul¬ 
titudinous misery of poor and disorderly ones. By the control of 
New York City, by “ rolling up ” a magnificent majority in its dense 
population, the Democratic party overcame the Republican ascen¬ 
dency in the State. Thus, from the most natural motives of preserva¬ 
tion, from the most legitimate aims at party power, the party machine 
was strengthened, was driven at its highest speed, oiled at every point 
of friction, and entrusted to the sharpest and boldest engineers. And 
the machine in its manifest efforts to resist the encroachments of rural 
legislation, while its professions may have thinly concealed its own 
dishonorable intentions, laid claim to the support of all New Yorkers 
who believed in “home rule,” and the expulsion of an unfriendly 
and uncongenial influence in the city’s government. The commission 
which, was appointed in 1876, “ to devise a plan for the government 
of cities in the State of New York,” had said that “ the judgment of 
the local governing bodies in various parts of the State, and the wishes 
of their constituents, are liable to be overruled by the votes of legis¬ 
lators living at a distance of a hundred miles.” It pointed out that of 
808 acts passed in 1870, 212 are acts relating to cities and villages, 94 
of which relate to cities, and 36 to the city of New York alone. The 
most indescribable confusion was introduced thereby into statutory 
law, and it was a confusion created by the ignorant and ill-considered 
meddling of outsiders. While it has vitiated the political system 
throughout the State, by making the valuable properties of cities the 
indirect spoils of the country—having in the language of the com¬ 
mission “ no other effect than to cause a like transfer of the methods 
and acts of corruption, and to make the fortunes of our principal 
cities the traffic of the lobbies,”—it has also directly led to the city of 
New York paying for almost half the public expenses of the whole 
State, making it an involuntary party to pecuniary obligations it has 



/ 


8 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


not incurred and has no interest in. The N. Y. Sun^ of April 4th, 
in an editorial under the title of ‘^The Looted City,” alluded to 
specific facts as to the robbery of this city, for the benefit of the 
interior counties of the State,” and said that these “facts and an explana¬ 
tion of the methods by which the outrage is accomplished, were 
obtained by an agent of the departments who has spent months in 
investigating the subject and in visiting different parts of the State for 
that purpose. ’ ’ The editorial continued: “ As is well known, this city 

has been made to pay 45 per cent of all the State taxes. To create a 
pretext for imposing this unequal burden on New York, as compared 
with the country outside, the State Board for the Equalization of 
Taxes has added regularly and persistently from ^100,000,000 to 
;^i27,000,000, to the assessed value of real estate in the city as fixed 
by the municipal Tax Department.” And it further stated that, 
“ while the valuation has been increased for this city by the State 
Board, it has been decreased more heavily for the country.” Facts 
like these were well calculated to arouse local feeling in favor of 
“ home rule,” intensifying it by the most effective considerations of 
private benefit, at least amongst tax-payers. It paid to make the 
machine strong, to vote for its candidates, establish its prestige, and 
overlook its expense, if the principle of self-government was enforced 
through its exertions. The adroit politician not always, perhaps not 
generally, sought his personal interest in the encouragement of this 
feeling, and so rendered the success of his party more certain and 
unbroken, the machine more fixed and resolute. 

Finally, the machine was inevitable from the nature of the political 
organization which in our country all parties assume, the system of 
primaries, of committees, the complexity of these committees and 
their double nature, managing and nominating, and the number of 
elective offices to be filled. Mr. Bryce has been struck by this elab¬ 
oration. He says (American Commonwealth): “ Note further how 
complex is the machinery needed to enable the party to concentrate 
its force in support of its candidates for all these places, and how large 
the number of persons constituting the machinery. Three sets of 
offices, municipal or county, State, Federal, have to be filled; three 
different sets of nominating bodies are therefore needed.” A man 



OF TAMMANY HALL 


9 


would have been credited with an acute sense of the desirability of a 
^‘machine” if the devices of our system of primary nominations, 
ward and county, managing and nominating committees, and the 
many offices to fill by election, had been displayed as his personal 
contrivance for its erection. The machine in some form was made 
inevitable. And here in a busy city where the many offices needed 
constant attention, where scrutiny of every candidate was impossible; 
where the recurrence of elections dismays those who have labored at 
the details of even one, some sort of formalized political organization 
representing a political sentiment or creed was made necessary. It 
took from the hands of tired and distracted men the control of the 
machinery of making nominations, and naturally after that assisted 
them to make its nominations successful at the polls. The germ of 
the machine lay dormant in the complicated folds of our system of 
political life. A machine was not necessarily a group of pot-house 
politicians, a leech upon the body politic, nor a sinister menace to popular 
liberty. It was a rule of procedure prescribed by our political system. 
Its evolution may have been gradual, but it was certain, and the ardor 
of political contest in a country of political enthusiasts hastened and 
developed it. It made requisitions upon memory, courage, and de¬ 
votion. It might be used well, or it might be perverted into an engine 
of oppression. The influences we have mentioned and the circum¬ 
stances of our social life, with the preponderating forces of deteriora¬ 
tion caused by the wealth of New York, made the machine what it has 
been, or is, in this city, but a machine we must have, and the real 
problem of political progress is to purify the machine and keep it pure, 
efficient and representative. 



CHAPTER 11. 


THE IDEAL “ MACHINE.” 

The machine is unavoidable in the politics of this country, and in 
itself represents a mechanical regulation of the public act of self-govern¬ 
ment, and nothing else. Accidents, circumstances, race conditions 
give the running of the machine to various men and sets of men, and 
the ulterior results are good or bad, as those men are good or bad, 
public spirited or selfish, reputable or disreputable, patriotic or 
treacherous. Tammany Hall controls the ‘‘machine” in this city, 
and is now running it, with, we think, an improved sense of its 
responsibilities, and at least, beyond cavil, with a determination to 
make and keep this city a salutary and safe place to live in. Its 
critics and opponents would be inclined, at least, to admit in regard 
to it, the equivocal sentiment of Mommsen about the Senate of 
the Restoration in Rome, that “an observer favorably predisposed 
might be of opinion that the Senate maintained a certain moderation 
in injustice and a certain decorum in misgovernment. ’ ’ Tammany can 
never be as bad as it once was; is by no means as bad as it is painted, 
and is succumbing already to influences which, if progressively 
strengthened, may make it the “Ideal Machine.” It is these 
influences which we wish to review and to indicate the measures of 
intensification which will make them more potent. 

Sir Thomas More, in Utopia, remarked, that: “ If you allow your 
people to be badly taught, their morals to be corrupted from childhood 
and then, when they are men, punish them for the very crimes to which 
they have been trained in childhood—what is this but to make thieves, 
and then to punish them?” This quotation is not used with any 
literal application, but, with this inferential one, that reforms to be 
radical and complete begin with education. We cannot expect in the 
City of New York to make the machine capable and honest, nay, 
more, enterprising and beneficent, until we have introduced, practised, 
and exhaustively developed every agency at our command to raise and 


OF TAMMANY HALL 


11 


enlighten public sentiment. Of course, there are of necessity innumer¬ 
able agencies already active, the churches, the schools, philanthropies, 
free lectures, newspapers, cheap and good music, festivals and patriotic 
holidays. But these we must both deepen and supplement. In 
many ways these agencies raise the temper, clarify the intelligence, 
illumine the desires and stop the viciousness of men, but for political 
advancement they must be given a political significance. Our 
political education must enter into all our curricula of culture. In 
this lies the secret of political betterment. 

To begin with the churches. These are conspicuously objective 
sources of influence upon men; let their Sunday Schools teach the 
necessity of probity in office, of the necessity in the Christian life of a 
citizen that he devote a certain amount of time, attention, and, if 
possible, money to ameliorate the distress of the city, improve its 
life and watch its interest. Let this instruction enter the 
catechism and be taught as a logical illustration of its many 
admonitions to be, and do good. 

The schools, public and private, are the nurseries of future citizen¬ 
ship, and the impressions made in them upon childhood and young 
manhood, the forecast of the expression of the future republic. Let 
our schools teach the history of our city, forcing upon them admiration 
of its great citizens so that they evoke the emulation of pride in their 
greatness, and holding up to their execration its bad citizens so that 
they remember them with scorn. Lectures, illustrated with lantern 
slides, can tell of the growth of New York, of its old parts, its colonial 
history, its revolutionary trials, its families and the glory of its growth. 
Busts of its eminent sons, in politics, in literature, in business, might 
decorate the classrooms, and their names become the bywords of 
illustrious memories. Recitations and subjects for composition might 
eloquently recount the story of New York and prompt young orators 
to picture its future splendors. Enthusiasm would soon be kindled, 
and the contagion of a common pride spread upward into the 
fathers and mothers of these children and permeate the remote 
borders of family interests. I.et the classes of our high schools, 
colleges, universities, &c., be given exact and obligatory teaching 
upon the political methods in vogue amongst us, the constitution of 



THE POLITICAL MISSION 


I 2 


our city, the order and status of its officers. Awaken in all directions 
the fire of metropolitan pride, and it will burn widely and give us fame. 

Our public charities should aim at amalgamating classes, suffusing 
those that are under with the light and happiness of those that are 
above, and all based upon an equality of citizenship. Such efforts 
as those of University Extension, more especially that of the College 
Settlement scheme, are beneficial in imparting sterner and finer views 
of life, of public responsibilities to the workingmen, and stirring their 
brave and noble natures by the thirst and acquirement of knowledge, 
and by the worship of strong and enduring talents, so that they shall 
ask for in the candidates for office .some reflection of their own enlight¬ 
ened tastes and opinions. Let debates awaken in them the love for for¬ 
ensic honor latent in all men, and let these debates turn upon the 
government of our city, upon its management, the conduct of its 
officers and the character of its officials. Before elections let such 
clubs of citizens congregate and discuss the merits of candidates, not 
with the fan-fare of a stump-speaking assembly, with drums and fifes 
and electric lights, smoking torches and illegible transparencies, but 
in quiet rooms, with a sense of solemnity and a love of fairness. 

In free lectures, the subject of the city government, its finances, the 
system of taxation, the assessments, its improvements, their cost, its 
sanitation, its buildings, novelties of construction, architectural hints 
as to increasing its beauty, ways of aiding its useful institutions, 
descriptions of its treasures of art and of science, its economical aspect, 
its manufacturers, its various industries, its classes of inhabitants, its 
many sides of life, might, with numerous other features of our 
cosmopolitan existence, be handled entertainingly and often by the 
help of pictures and diagrams. Such lectures as that of Mr. Riis, 

How the Other Half Lives,” suggest a way of bringing into more real 
and fraternal relationship the poor and rich, with a mutual enlighten¬ 
ment of each other’s common nature and common hopes. Newspapers 
cannot be different from what they are; they exist to supply a demand, 
though, to their full credit be it said, they overstep the limits of a simply 
marketable article, and under the guidance of brilliant and disciplined 
minds, teach and advance the higher interests of humanity as well. 
They might be more honest, possibly more truthful, and the tone of 



OF TAMMANY HALL 


13 


rancorous fault finding and abuse might be profitably exchanged for 
something more just, even if less stimulating. Newspapers do keep 
up public spirit, they protect public interest, and harbor and promote 
the feelings of metropolitan pride; they abound in local sketches, bits 
of historical coloring, notable reminiscences, and they keep in view 
the greatness of our name and, in mind, the honor of our best men. 
This is an ameliorating and educational influence, and helps to dispel 
the torpidity and indifference of the common voter, making him more 
conscious that discrimination in his vote is judicious and obligatory. 

Holidays cannot be made much of in the way we mean, cannot be 
made exactly, at least easily, tributary to a movement fostering the 
higher hopes of the ordinary citizen in our city and enlisting his 
sympathies in its real advancement. Evacuation Day would lend 
itself to motives of this sort, and might be extended to two days with 
processions and general jollity, enlivening the people and making 
them glad to own and govern a noble city, making them happy in its 
general usefulness as a beautiful and clean place. And in this last 
matter of cleanliness, with which is associated thoughts of beauty, of 
design, of the prestige of art, something more may be said. Every 
effort should be made to keep our streets clean and wholesome, 
absolutely so. It cleans the minds and imparts a sense of decency to 
walk in pure, neat streets. It renovates the life of the city by making 
it healthful, and so reacts upon the public sentiment and sentiment¬ 
ality of all of us, in the matter of our relations with the public life of 
New York. 

Buildings should be closely inspected to ascertain their perfect safety, 
more especially the buildings devoted to communal living, as 
tenements and hotels, and it might be even wise to add to the 
functions of a building department a censorship of the architectural 
features of buildings, so that a constant tendency might be established 
towards making New York beautiful. 

Music is already furnished to the people, let even more be expended 
upon it. It is a delightful and noble joy. It should be full and 
splendid, and more and more tending to works of true musical art. 
These are all agencies working up in the people a higher ideal of 
living, creating a homogeneity amongst them, by a common interest 




14 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


in our city’s interests, pleasures, history and beauty, and acting again 
upon their expectations and claims in city government. When a 
widened culture will prevail, then the 7 nachine will assume a higher 
character and become the expression of the people’s higher standard, 
and so draw on to the realization of the most tempting ideal of 
machine rule. 

For an ideal machine ” can be made a practical aim, and there 
are even reasons for thinking that, in the strength and thoroughness of 
certain administrative functions, Tammany to-day dimly suggests the 
dawning lineaments of a machine that will be truly ideal. But 
New York must be independejit. New York must assume the 
responsibility of her own govern 7 nent; she 7 nust occupy the legislative 
functions of her own wisdom to 7 nake her own laws; she 7 ?iust become 
a City-State exercising the prerogatives of political autonomy unhindered 
i 7 i the development of her syste 7 n, unchecked in the evolutio 7 i of her 
characteristics and the eleme 7 its and features of a completely furnished 
government. The moment New York rises to the higher level of a 
political U 7 iit, the 77 ioment her prese 7 it officers rise into the conventional 
attributes and dignity of state officials, the moment she treats and is 
treated as a realm, then a new impetus m her political regeneration is 
started. Freshened hopes a 7 id wide ambitions, touched with a poetic 
prophecy of greater beauty a 7 id power for all her belongings, will gather a 
stro 7 ig intellectual force from her scholars and writers and thinkerSi 
her business- 7 nen, her clergy, her workmen, and tur 7 t into channels of 
improvement all the currents of her financial, moral and mental strength. 
We will all in our political thought be more intense, conciliatory and 
high-minded. The very bottom of intelligent society will be stirred 
by so momentous a change, and the multiplied centres of influence in 
Exchanges, in Newspapers, in Clubs, in Labor Organizations, in 
Colleges and Institutes, will send accelerated currents of feeling 
through society, making stronger, fiercer, more compelling demands 
upon politicians. Party must in great measure vanish, since local 
choice and policy will come in so largely to influence voters. 
Dangers may arise, corruption might raise its head with sinister 
confidence, and social distinctions might be temporarily deepened, but 
the strenuousness of conflict in our midst with really evil tendencies in 



OF TAMMANY HALL 


15 


our political life would always save us, and make easier every step forward, 
and quicken the mutiny against all political degradation. It is true 
that factional fight has raged in the city autonomies of the past, that in 
the earlier days of New York it raged, and that we have seen the 
effects of factional conflict. But in connexion with the use of all 
the agencies we have rehearsed, taken in connexion with the broadened 
and fraternal sense amongst us of sensible and earnest living, the 
common downright directness of our present modes of thinking, there 
would be little real danger of any disastrous disorder or turbulence. 
Party and political difference would exist, but they would embrace 
distinctions not recognized in the national parties; they would involve 
local elements as to differing views as to our metropolitan government, 
and such difference would be healthful and interesting. They would 
not, could not, degenerate into squabbles for power simply, for money 
and place, and, if they did, the irrepressible excellence of our nature 
would dispel and overcome such dissensions, or at least lift them 
above the sordid strife of corrupt place-men. Let us be free! Let 
New York gather in her surrounding borders, and consolidated by an 
intense and outspoken, but glorious, pride exhibit to the world the 
highest example it has ever known of a community pervaded by a 
generous and lofty public spirit, compared with which the tyrannous 
exultation of the ancient Roman and the bitter intensity of Venetian 
dogmatism will seem puerile and hateful. 

Then the ‘‘Ideal Machine ” will be the rule of men loyal to the best 
phases of metropolitan life, anxious to add new charms to our city, 
fired by a zeal to render it a healthful, happy and beautiful home for 
its people, renovating the springs of honest pride by a just progressive 
dispensation of their talents for our city’s good and themselves 
renovated in turn by an eager public spirit. 

It is said by Grote that Lycurgus realized in Sparta his project of 
creating “unrivalled habits of obedience, hardihood, self-denial and 
military aptitude—complete subjection on the part of each individual 
to the local public opinion, and preference of death to the abandoment 
of Spartan maxims, intense ambition on the part of every one to 
distinguish himself within the prescribed sphere of duties, with little 
ambition for anything else.” 



i6 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


An equally faithful and proud devotion to the welfare and fame^ 
power and comforts of our city might be engendered under the rule 
of the Ideal Machine,” certainly less narrow,dogmatic and intolerant, 
but equally fervid and enduring. To think of such things at once is 
impracticable and ludicrously quixotic, but there is much room for 
hope, and that hope partly rests in the certain control of our political 
destinies by Tammany Hall itself. But Tammany must be made 
sensitive to a higher order of opinion, stronger in its intellectual life, 
finer in its social sympathies. Can that be done? 



CHAPTER III. 

THE RE-FORMATION OF TAMMANY HALL. 

The organization known as Tammany Hall has shown its great 
strength in the City of New York, the coercive power of its agents, 
its unresisted control of masses of men, and its erudition in all the 
arts of political wheedling and political device. It seems to present 
the realization of a political machine remorseless in the pursuit of 
aims, unflinching in the use of means, consolidated and unruffled in 
the devotion, the accuracy, and subjection of its servants. It has 
attained that cynical consciousness of its own strength where it retains 
its peace of mind under criticism, and a certain magnanimity of 
toleration of its opponents after victory. It is neither high-minded 
nor brutally debased. It scorns ideals and it is selfishly addicted to a 
belief in itself as the acme of practical politics, and the best illustra¬ 
tion of a useful and successful adaption of the adage : “ To the victor 
belongs the spoils.” 

Its members have many of the generous impulses of men and are 
moved by the customary objects of desire which commonly keep men 
decent, but they have become steeped in the flagitious influences of 
a loose 7 fiorale, and have approached dangerously near utter ruin by 
their love of animal happiness and their intolerance of all restraints 
which embarrass self-indulgence. The City of New York is an 
enormous charge, its interests are numerous, its expenditures princely, 
and Tammany Hall is the representative expression of an organized 
body of men who appreciate the pecuniary benefits of ruling it. 
They move together with an instinct of unanimity born of self-interest. 
They cultivate a low charlatanism of merry and lewd proclivities by 
which the ignorant and the low are captivated ; they also appreciate 
the claims of intelligence, and are active and subtle in the subornation 
of brain to deleterious ends. They have that duplicity of temperament 
which deceives alike the confiding and the shrewd, and they disarm 
the vigor of their enemies by an affectation of humility and candor. 
In short, Tammany Hall exists for political power and it will retain 


i8 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


political power for it has all its parts so made, so educated, 
so paid, as to render dislodgment impossible, and it has 
shrewdness enough not to permit itself to sink so low, or to play so 
fast and loose with public interest as to weaken the adhesion of its 
admirers or dismay their confidence. It has deep affiliations with the 
less cultivated classes of our voters who regard it as less haughty and 
self-assuming than more pretentious claimants to power, as more 
Democratic and less gaudily dressed with moral aphorisms. They see 
in it something of their own loose sense of moral responsibility and 
something of their own love for hilarity and liquor. Anxious to 
reward its emissaries, its members, and its rulers, the conceptions of 
new projects of material improvement are entertained with avidity, 
and it thus throws into its administration of city affairs an expression 
of bustle and energy not altogether deceptive, and not altogether 
honest. Tammany Hall possesses a fund of substantial common- 
sense, executive precision, and administrative gumption, but its 
instrumentalities cannot be too low for its purposes and may be too 
high for its composure. It is not at ease with unsullied reputations; 
it is not altogether happy with convicts. If it could secure all its 
ends and cover itself with the mantle of righteousness, it would scarcely 
enjoy the hypocrisy ; if it could only secure its ends by becoming an 
assassin of public honor, it would shrink from the ordeal. Its histori¬ 
cal development has much to do with its misdemeanors and its failures, 
and the exigencies of New York’s mixed population lie at the root of 
its corrupt tendencies. Because Tammany Hall is powerful, we believe 
it has a mission of importance ; because it is composed of men not utterly 
depraved, we believe that mission may be high and useful. This is a new 
political creed for New York City, and involves a new political procedure. 
This creed and procedure are fraught with interesting consequences 
and may resume for New York the aspect of a progressive and just 
municipality and restore to it the atmosphere of sound, judicious and 
wholesome political aspirations. In fact that era appears, to us, 
already to have dawned. Let us look at the history of Tammany, let 
us understand how far Tammany is the result of impulses implanted at 
its birth and strenghtened by its environment, how truly it is a creature 
of circumstance, into whose texture the influences of place and the 



OF TAMMANY HALL 


19 


constitutional tendencies of certain classes of men have imprinted 
characteristic strains of feeling which may not be always sweet, but 
are unavoidable. And if we can discern in the pages of this history a 
lesson in evolutionary politics, let us apply it to the redemption and 
renovation of Tammany to-day, believing that the process of change 
can be brought about in exactly the same way as the process of 
growth, and that we may be able to effect an improvement in this 
society by natural methods rather than by hostility, invoking the aid 
of those laws both social and psychological which have elsewhere, and 
in other times, molded men and changed States. Hostility is futile, 
feeble and wasteful. Tammany holds the votes and will hold them, 
and the single avenue of reform is through Tammany itself, by 
incorporating in it the very elements which it is supposed not to 
possess. Besides the organization of a powerful and intelligent political 
motor is desirable in our city, if it can be made to respond and reflect, 
nay, lead and direct, public sentiment, and educate professional rulers 
whose minds are imbued with the rationale of public policy, and 
whose hearts are inflamed with the fervor of metropolitan pride. No 
wider vista of usefulness, of educated ambition, and, in a legitimate 
sense, of pecuniary profit could be developed than opens before a 
political organization trained by the heritage*of experience to be wise, 
prudent and patriotic, to acquire power by its just exercise, and to 
invite support by the practice of an encompassing theory of fairness 
and progressive views. The picture of the gradual ^absorption of 
Tammany into an outline so vast and platonic may appear ludicrous, 
and the hope of transmuting its rapacious and implacable spirit into 
the expression of a magnanimous and illuminated spirit of wisdom, 
the extreme of intentional satire. Perhaps the ideal is foolishly lofty, 
but it is an excellent standard by which the present degradation of 
political organizations may be determined, and yet also it is, we 
believe, measurably possible to bring Tammany Hall into conformity 
with it, if the loyal sentiment of New York will surround Tammany, 
penetrate Tammany, mold and influence it, and so slowly fuse down 
the harshness of its present separation from the so-called better sense 
of the community, and impart to it a comeliness born of its own 
improved manners, improved aims, and recognition everywhere as a 



20 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


beneficent agency. How this can be done is learned from a study of 
how Tammany is what it is, and from a consideration of the very 
obvious fact that societies, clubs, churches and nations are the 
aggregate result or epitome of all their separate members. 

In the first place it may be at once said, however repugnant the 
statement appears, that politics and political methods cannot be gov¬ 
erned by the purest moral precepts. The instrumentalities used are 
too various and many of them too sordid, the motives necessarily in a 
measure selfish, and the rivalry of feeling amongst men too animated 
for us to expect apostolic beauty in the relations and acts of poli¬ 
ticians. The most, the best we can do, is to reduce irregularities to 
a minimum. We can control natural tendencies by penalties and we 
can consistently struggle to introduce more and more into politics a 
sense of responsibility, and more and more bring forward men who 
feel this sense and respond as quickly to public admiration or public 
censure as the actor on the stage to the approval or disgust of his 
audience. We can be expert in our selection of men, and we can be 
ingenious in our system of detection. Public office is often pleasant 
and profitable. It affords influence and perhaps has slender or moderate 
duties. The attractiveness of office—in the lower grades of office— 
appeals to what is lazy in us, to what is vain and self-seeking as well, 
and men who count public office as a convenient means of subsistence, 
may not be the highest type of men, and may only slightly feel the 
reality of their obligations to the people. The machinery of politics 
makes requirements upon ingenuity, and ingenuity deteriorates, in the 
extremity of conflict, to trickery and deceit. Money in a hundred 
different ways enters into the phases of practical politics, and money 
vulgarizes the ambition of men and blunts their keener moral sense 
and in the nature of things this is largely inevitable; 

Fugere pudor^ verumque, Jidesque, 

In quorum, subiere locum fraudesque, dolique, 

Insidiccque, et vis, et amor sceleratus habendi. 

All sorts and conditions to-day are appealed to in popular elections 
and their suffrages must be somehow secured, perhaps bought or bribed 
or insidiously influenced. Place-men are supported because of their 
usefulness, and degradation of public service surely follows. Perhaps 



OF TAMMANY HALL 


21 


the best men in both parties regret this and personally maintain an 
inviolate purity, but placed as they find themselves, they speak 
to the flowing winds their lofty legends of wdsdom and 
aspiration, and are shouldered into office on the back of a vicious 
system of low political methods. Now Tammany Hall especially 
was subject to the worst influences of the worst sort of 
politics. It represented the more popular political party in a 
city not representatively American, and became infiltrated with the 
sediment of pot-houses and saloons. Like all political parties it aimed 
at power, and as its affiliations were Democratic, it partook somewhat 
of the illiterate sense of duty which in so many of its constituents was 
easily exchangeable with a less ignorant sense of self and pleasure. 
But not to go too far in a line of thought, that is naturally in place 
when we look at the history of Tammany Hall, let us simply remark 
that all politics engender moral looseness; that the aim of practical 
reform is to restrict misdemeanor and that, in the conduct of any gov" 
erning body in a large heterogeneous city under a system of unlimited 
suffrage, we cannot expect a Cincinnatian fidelity to trusts or a Cicero¬ 
nian eloquence of invective against dishonesty. 

New York, up to i860, had been growing with a rapidity that 
reflected its increasing business enterprise, the settlement of manufact¬ 
uring interests within its borders, and the broadening current of 
foreign emigration. This foreign emigration swept out of the govern¬ 
ment of the old world, and carried with it the vice, the ignorance, 
the pauperism of their over-crowded cities. From this stream of 
migration, which lost something of its impetus upon landing in the 
new country, the poorer, less desirable elements, dropped out and sank 
into the turbid waters of our city politics, a sediment of mixed 
nationalities, uneducated to love the country and unqualified to com¬ 
prehend its meaning. 

We deprecate that sort of fear that some people evince over the 
introduction into our midst of a foreign element, for our common 
heritage of human sentiment soon asserts itself, and hardy and correct 
instincts soon recognize the atmosphere of liberty. Instruction in 
the aims of popular government enters the minds and hearts of the 
Indo-European race with the very air they daily breathe in a free 



22 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


country. Besides, the tendencies to homogeneity are overpowering 
in a country where inter-marriages, common education, and the 
abolition of all class distinctions in public assemblies, thoroughfares 
and public conveyances prevail. 

In i860. New York, as to-day, was collecting a population of 
aliens who regarded their votes as merchandise and degraded 
the system of franchise by their illiteracy and selfish motives. 
Mr. Goodnow says in his article on the Tweed Ring in New York 
City (Bryce’s American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 335 : Macmillan): 
‘^The middle classes, which had thus far con|:rolled the municipal 
government, were displaced by an ignorant proletariat, mostly of 
foreign birth, which came under the sway of ambitious political 
leaders, and was made to subserve schemes of political corruption, 
such as had not before been concocted on American soil.” At this 
time, when Tweed, Connolly, Sweeney and Hall combined their 
separate temperaments and abilities, they took possession of Tammany 
Hall as a well organized and venerable political society, and debased 
it to the level of their worst purposes, while they incorporated into the 
very fibre, tissue and circulation of its being the rude manners of this 
dissolute, foreign element, and so gave it a complexion, a taste, and 
social atmosphere which Tammany Hall to-day can only slowly 
modify, purify and refine. 

Tammany Hall arose in the Columbus Society, a social organiza¬ 
tion whose members were naturally interested in the events of their 
day, and in whose discussions of these events we may suppose opinions 
of more or less value were published. Its members became impor¬ 
tant spectators and finally influential participants in political acts and 
so were drawn by the most natural sequence of circumstances into 
public life. They became a political club, formed the home where polit¬ 
ical movements were started and political honors promised, and so made 
themselves a nucleus around which gathered more and more those to 
whom politics was a profession or a game. As its authority increased, 
it amalgamated its own traditions with aboriginal habits, and mimicked 
the constitution of an Indian tribe, a fact which gave it an earth-born 
and bred look, and caught the fancy of Americans. At first the 
respectable middle classes made up its membership, later the change 



OF TAMMANY HALL 


23 


came about, entirely naturally, by which Tammany Hall became rep¬ 
resentative of a foreign element somewhat pretentiously dressed in the 
form of an indigenous cult. As Tammany saw its political influence 
rise, as men in it appreciated the drift of events in a city progressively 
Democratic in its population, and as they noted the ease with which 
they might establish a sort of class fealty to a set of notions and a 
popular demeanor of coarse comradeship, this society became more and 
more lowered in its political culture, though it held on to its capital of 
political shrewdness and expedients. So the composition of Tammany 
changed, and changed much for the worse, but changed exactly as 
might have been anticipated. For a political body, after it has 
assumed a public role and felt the exhilaration of power and the 
comfort of emoluments, will be exactly what circumstances require it to 
be. It is necessarily the most plastic and susceptible of organisms. 
The influence of persons coincided with the influence of events. 
A group of astute rascals seized upon Tammany Hall, manipulated its 
elaborate machinery for their own ends, and aggravated the prostitu¬ 
tion of a voting canaille by their venal methods and a cold-hearted 
insensibility to the promises of their oath or office. 

The Tweed ring scandal, and the Tweed ring tryanny was also 
symptomatic of the period. It occurred at a time, and amongst a 
group of men who were ripe for the futherance of the most high¬ 
handed and vicious schemes of political ambition and temporal 
gratification. The public atmosphere was itself infected by the 
contagious germs of political corruption. A disease of public disorder 
and rapine more or less infected the social organism; it was apparent 
at Washington; it broke out in the larger cities; and, in the business 
world, the vast inflation of prices from an expanded and a depreciated 
currency engendered baseless enterprises, wild-cat investments and 
fictitious bonanzas. Mr. Roosevelt has truly remarked of this period, 
that it was an era of gigantic stock-swindling. The enormously rich 
stock-speculators of Wall Street in their wars with one another and 
against the general public found ready tools and allies to be hired for 
money in the State and City politicians and in judges, who were 
acceptable alike to speculators, politicians, and mob. There were 
continual contests for the control of railway systems, and ^ operations ’ 



24 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


in stocks, which barely missed being criminal, and which branded 
those who took part in them as infamous in the sight of all honest 
men; and the courts and legislative bodies became parties to the 
iniquity of men composing that most dangerous of all classes, the 
wealthy criminal class.” 

Tweed had loosened from himself every restraint of private integrity, 
and exulted in the monumental triumph of a plundered city; he 
rejoiced in the possession of a host of defiant and lawless suffragists, 
and the sway of influence gotten and kept by money. Tweed had 
ambition, and he certainly had talent, and he began to promulgate 
schemes of astonishing dimensions. We may believe that there was a 
large admixture of something far less sordid than mere greed of money, 
great as that may have been, in Tweed’s nature; that dreams of 
imposing projects in which he passed before his own eyes as a national 
political factor of sovereign importance were indulged in by him, and 
seemed really nearer and nearer realization as his power grew and 
matured. His position was favorable. ‘‘In this city,” said the 
Committee of Seventy, “where millions could be stolen from tax¬ 
payers without imposing extra burdens that were felt as enormous by 
so wealthy a constituency, it is not strange that prevailing corruption 
should have broken out in aggravated forms.” But Tweed and his 
confederates, in order that they might enjoy this opportunity with as 
little interference and interruption as possible, discerned the necessity 
of securing for New York City local government. New York City 
had previously been subjected to the vexatious and not always wise med¬ 
dling of the State Legislature, and was^often treated as a disobedient and 
incapable minor; many of its officials were appointed by the Legisla¬ 
ture. Under the guidance of Thurlow Weed, the Republicans of the 
State kept their finger in the pie so appetizing and so nutritious, by 
helping themselves to these offices, and by forming those underground 
alliances with the opposite party, which, however shocking to the 
politician when brought to light, are cherished by him with peculiar 
zeal when- properly concealed. In the perilous course of adventure 
upon which they had started, the Tweed Ring realized that this state 
of things was too distracting and too unguarded. To unify this 
many-headed political hydra and bring the rapacity of all its members 




OF TAMMANY HALL 


25 


into a co-ordinated system of consolidated plunder, a Legislature had to 
be bought, heelers bought, ward-workers bought, clerks bribed, 
saloons fed and a large proletariat of strong-fisted men and insolent 
repeaters maintained. Power must be concentrated, and it must 
be concentrated in the ring itself. 

Now, in all these stages of its progress, the ring entrenched itself in 
Tammany Hall, and as we are interested in the influences under 
which that organization came, this is more important than a review of 
the deeds of the ring. Tammany Hall was made thoroughly corrupt, 
it was prostituted to the most base purposes, it was a tool used by 
these daring men to subserve their own ends. They incorporated it 
in the ring itself, and so absorbed it that the Tweed Ring and Tam¬ 
many Hall were synonymous terms. The debauchery of Tammany 
Hall under Tweed was complete. A picture of successful elevation 
purchased at the sacrifice of all self-respect; an education in the use of 
the most despicable methods to deceive and cheat the people; the 
parade of an inordinate vanity, which dressed its self-conceit in 
reflections upon the weakness and venality of men, these were the incen¬ 
tives the members of Tammany Hall received. And the members of 
Tammany Hall, chosen under the auspices and with the approval of 
the ring, were exactly such as received these incentives with admira¬ 
tion. The grain and body of Tammany Hall were frightfully pol¬ 
luted, and the pollution took place in a body which was incapable of 
healthy renewal, which, until it was brought into a different atmos¬ 
phere, and was provided with different nutriment, could not 
recover from its destitution and foulness. 

The ring concentrated its power in itself. It secured a charter 
enacted, under the stimulus of bribery, by the N. Y. Legislature, a 
charter paid for^ and proving so costly that the power it gave to its 
authors was the signal means by which the expenses it had involved 
were successfully liquidated. The disintegration of all moral preju- 
dicesand scruples was quite complete. It was offset, however, by the 
concentration of iniquitous activity in the hands and brains of a few, 
by the inauguration of this Tweed charter, an instrument correct in 
principle and progressive in its requisitions. This was some compen¬ 
sation for the wholesale remittal of honest methods. It kept the 




26 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


system of burglary defined and compact, and when the storm of public 
revolt and repudiation broke upon these dishonest servants, the lesson 
of punishment and restitution gained solemnity from its denunciatory 
violence upon a few. The bolt of public obloquy and execration 
retained its directness and fearful power, and was not absorbed and 
divided into a hundred sinuous avenues of individual prosecution. 

And Tammany Hall felt this blow, it shook and reeled in the 
tempest. But beneath all the uproar and commotion, beneath the 
rage and menaces, there lay that deeply seated connection between the 
poorer classes of voters and the jocular good heartedness which 
Tweed had assumed, the spirit of fraternization with the lowly or the 
debased, and which he had incorporated in the councils and feelings 
of Tammany Hall. On that Tammany Hall stood and stood securely. 
But there were other reasons for the fixity of Tammany Hall. 
Tammany had a history closely interwoven with the history of 
New York, and associated with institutions which old New Yorkers 
yet cherished from the interest and charm of reminiscence. The 
volunteer fire department still captivates the fancy of the populace 
and its cheery and rugged spirit of adventure, marred too often with 
violence, and recalled in episodes of daring sports, and felonious 
assault, variously appealed to classes quite distinct but somewhat linked 
together by these venerable traditions. With all this Tammany Hall 
seemed closely bound. Tammany had always struggled for home-rule, 
and though its ends may have been selfish, its efforts evoked in itself 
a spirit of pride in New York, as a city strong and great, and 
attracted many who felt the vigor and zeal of a metropolitian 
enthusiasm. The old municipal police, its supporters, members and 
friends were stirred to indignation at the recollection of the interference 
of the State, and turned to Tammany, as the most constant opponent 
of ^‘hayseed legislation” and ^‘hayseed impudence.” And then 
religious bonds counted for much, and a powerful church had in one 
way or another found a political friend in Tammany, and kept its 
members attached to the same patronage. 

Tammany felt the sobering influence of the popular revolt against 
rings and bosses. It amended its ways, or at least seriously thought of 
doing so. It recognized that the public eye was fastened upon it, and 



OF TAMMANY HALL 


27 


it retreated, temporarily, mingling its own interests with other political 
associations existing for similar ends, but not so endowed with the 
heritage of historic memories. Herein lay a peril for New York, and 
it is one that has only lately lessened, if not vanished. Tammany 
Hall through Tweed had secured for New York a charter which sub¬ 
stantially exists to-day, a charter which gives to New York a system 
of self-government that has in it a wide and deep possibility of meeting 
all our public exigencies, providing the means for an energetic mayor¬ 
alty, limiting the opportunities of hidden or covert crime, and 
solidifying the administration of the city so much as to bring in the 
compass of a comparatively narrow scrutiny all the responsible and 
fiduciary offices of its government. A step had been taken in the 
right direction. A more centralized government had been created, 
and the confusion of hunting a public thief through a vexatious chain 
of divided authorities was over. But who was to take command, 
Tammany abashed and frightened, overloaded with reproaches, and 
weakened by defection could not. The cry of hands off,''' arose at 
every movement it made to reassert itself, and so gradually the 
spectacle of its discomfiture encouraged the growth of other rings, 
not more scrupulous, and far less ancient, and we came into a period 
of turbulent politics where Republican and Democratic factions fought 
each other in the city, as a whole, and in the wards. This was a great 
obstacle in the way of strong and progressive city government; this 
existence of rings, political aspirants of different stripes, competing for 
public recognition, and after the competition sorting out to each othe^^ 
their proportionate shares of patronage and booty. Nothing could be 
worse. They were in no sense checks upon each other except as the 
greed or vanity of each devised more flagitious ways of routing or cir¬ 
cumventing their opponents or their mutual threats evolved a closer 
partnership of shame. Mr. Franklin Edson as Mayor illustrated this. 
Though Mr. Edson resented the tyranny of his numerous affiliations he 
was compelled to recognize this divided allegiance in his appointments. 
Tammany Hall, Irving Hall and the County Democracy were all 
gnawing on the same bone. Mr. Edson’s appointments were bad, 
because they indirectly represented deals between these factions, and 
they were inefficient and disappointing. 




28 


THE POLITICAL MISSION 


In the last two mayoralty elections, Tammany has shown its renewed 
strength, and the field is its own. And we are glad it is so. Tammany 
possesses a wide experience; it inherits certain valuable prejudices 
about New York’s independence, and in its executive men, however 
discouraging in some respects, there is a keen bustling business sense, 
not indeed unallied to imagination, which promises for New York 
progr-ess.. Tammany has the strength and the ability to provide us 
with a vigorous consistent and comprehensive administration; Tammany 
cannot any more escape the traditions, its associations and its history 
than can a man. Some of these traditions are good, and what in its 
associations and history is bad must be effaced and replaced. In the 
opening paragraphs of this article we hinted at those repugnant features 
in the personal expression, so to speak, of Tammany. Some of these 
repugnant features arise from the dependence of Tammany upon the 
naturalized vote, and they will remain until Tammany absorbs more 
American sentiment and cultivated feeling, by assimilating the best or 
better elements of the community. 

Of course it is clear that two difficulties may arise here, first, the 
self-confidence of Tammany Hall may lead it to reject all union with 
a higher element of thought and feeling, exchanging, it may think, 
solid votes for the fictitious advantage of an improved reputation. 
Secondly, the social section of the community which now holds itself 
aloof from Tammany may continue to do so from a sincere conviction 
that “it is no use,” and that Tammany means an unsanctified and 
incorrigible ruffianism. Now Tammany Hall does not feel any such 
confidence as would justify it in throwing away influential co-operation 
of any sort. The mayoralty contest between Hewitt, Roosevelt and 
George has never been forgotten by Tammany. Henry George polled 
nearly 70,000 votes, and they w^ere votes taken from the classes upon 
whom Tammany had been accustomed to rely. Hewitt was saved by 
just the vote in a large degree of those classes who, at present, do not 
“ mix ” with the Tammany Tiger. The Roman Church has distracted 
or removed the vote which Henry George drew, but the workingmen 
have been made, by circumstances, a thinking and independent class, 
and too much of the old-fashioned Tammany deviltry would drive 
them into mutiny. Tammany is not so sure of its tenure upon the 


f 




OF TAMMANY HALL 


29 


voting classes as it once was, and it would surrender much of its 
prevalent uncouthness for any assistance. To-day, Tammany buys 
votes, and it would like extremely to secure its majorities less 
expensively. 

On the other hand, Tammany is not an unsanctified and 
incorrigible ruffianism.” The members of Tammany, its bosses and 
dignitaries, are not fools, they have learned a good many things, and 
they feel and know that the government of this city cannot be 
conducted in a happy-go-lucky style with an immoderate admixture 
of avarice and crime. It cannot be doubted that Tammany has 
entered into contracts that are odious, but there are many indications 
that Tammany is more susceptible to enlightened opinion than ever 
before and that, throughout its upper layers at least, there is permeating 
the improved sense of its great responsibilities. The time is ripe for 
a new life to enter Tammany, entering by the natural channels of 
membership, of social intercourse, and earnest and honorable entreaty. 
Clamorous abuse will not improve, reconcile, or renovate Tammany 
Hall, but persistent representations of what can be done for New York, 
of the wisdom and benefit of just and clean government, of the strong 
and elevated position Tammany can attain to, will do a great deal. 
The avenues of influence upon a stalwart and observant organization 
like Tammany are numerous, and many of them insidious and 
transforming. There is first access to Tammany through membership, 
personal encounter with its rulers, and impressions made upon it by a 
straightforward and zealous demeanor, one not spoiled by a trifling 
scorn and a hypercritical purity of word and manner. There is again 
discriminating praise for whatever is valuable and judicious in 
Tammany’s management, and with temperate criticism of what is bad. 
There are the more objective influences of philanthropic enterprises 
amongst the poor, educational efforts amongst the ignorant, and a 
perpetual recognition of New York’s history, by public celebrations of 
her great days, and by a desire and effort to secure Tammany’s 
participation in them. The good work of all bodies of people helping 
to ameliorate the social conditions of New York, to improve public senti¬ 
ment, and to stir up popular enthusiasm are so many indirect influences 
upon Tammany, for Tammany has identified itself with New York. 







30 


THE POLITICAL MISSION OF TAMMANY HALL 


Tammany is the exponent of Democratic rule in this city, and all 
agencies affecting New York affect it, because of its comprehensive 
control over New York’s interests. The aggregate effect of the edu¬ 
cated public sentiment, to-day, of the increasing pride in New York of 
her own growth has been noticeable, and Tammany rule over New 
York is more safe and adequate. Such a course of conduct toward 
Tammany will also test the worth and sincerity of Tammany. It 
must bring some commensurate response, and the voice of Tammany 
will become less rancorous with the defiance of the fourth ward, and 
more equable and loud in the profession of high aims. It will become 
more representative of New York’s cosmopolitan interests, more the 
embodiment of New York’s best public thought, and more attuned^ 
to loyal sentiments for the welfare and fair name of New York. 
Slowly, part by part will be renewed with new substance ; its expanding 
borders will touch and enclose all that is best and wisest in New York; 
it will become the central and animating source of a true and high 
political activity; it will become a school of patriotic traditions, and 
establish itself as the Areopagus of New York’s intelligence and 
wisdom. 























